


Pyrite

by Ironlawyer



Series: Skrull Ficlets [1]
Category: Marvel 616
Genre: Angst, Cuddles, Denial, Fluff, M/M, Skrull(s), Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-27
Updated: 2018-03-27
Packaged: 2019-04-13 17:32:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14117382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ironlawyer/pseuds/Ironlawyer
Summary: Tony wakes in Steve's arms. Everything should be perfect, but some days it’s hard to pretend.





	Pyrite

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to SilverInStars for looking this over.

For the first time in years, Tony is happy. He wakes in the morning with Steve’s arms wrapped around him, warm and tight, leaving little red patches on Tony’s skin where he squeezes too hard in his sleep. Tony’s nose is buried in Steve’s neck and the fading smell of sex and sweat clings to his skin. His first thought on waking is of how lucky he is.

He rests his hand on Steve’s stomach, feels it moving as he breathes and listens to the gentle snoring and soft sighs. This is how he always wanted life to be.

He lies there, still and silent, counting Steve’s breaths until his eyes flicker open. Steve smiles. It’s a soft, sleepy smile, one Tony had not known before, but now he sees it every morning.

Tony leans into it, presses his lips to Steve’s and thinks only of how perfect this moment is. He needs to feel that first morning kiss as much as he needs that first sip of coffee. He needs to feel Steve breathing against him. Steve touching him, loving him.

His fingers rest at the base of Steve’s neck, curling in the tufts of hair and pushing him closer, deeper. Steve used to keep his hair shorter, but he grew it out when Tony’s fingers would search for something to hold on to. Tony didn’t need to ask. Steve would do anything to please him.

Tony pulls away from the kiss and runs his hand down Steve’s back. He needs to touch, as though if he stops, Steve will wither away in front of his eyes. He pictures broken bones and a frail body. Blood, on his skin and in the air. He buries his face against Steve’s shoulder. Feels muscle, sweat and the solid beating of a living heart. ‘I love you,’ Tony whispers.

Steve is silent for a moment, and Tony thinks maybe he isn’t going to say it back. Maybe it is something else to him. Obligation, duty. Something less than love. He pulls back, looks into Steve’s eyes and wants to beg him to say it back and make Tony believe it.

After a time, Steve says, ‘I love you too.’ His voice trembles slightly, but he brings his hand to rest on Tony’s face and runs his thumb across Tony’s cheek. Tony doesn’t doubt him. He knows what Steve looks like when he’s lying. Now he looks happy and calm and all the things that love should make you feel.

The sun shines in through a crack in the curtains and catches Steve’s skin in a soft, golden glow. Tony thinks it’s almost unnatural how perfect he is. His skin is smooth, baby soft and hairless. Tony’s own skin is dotted with scars. Ragged, ugly things that never heal and leave him looking like a worn out library book that belongs in the trash. Steve could have so much better, but he is here.

‘You’re too perfect,’ Tony says. He runs his hand along Steve’s chest and thinks this is what a painting would look like. Take all the humanity and wash it away into something perfect and impossible and you’d get Steve. He wonders if Steve ever had scars.

Steve rests a hand over Tony’s. He holds on too tight, squeezes Tony’s fingers until it hurts. ‘I can change,’ he says. He can feel Steve’s faux heart beating rapidly beneath his fingers. Sometimes it scares him how real this is.

He falls asleep with Steve in his arms and waits for the day he wakes up alone. He holds him and kisses him and fucks him and it feels almost like a dream. But his dreams were never so sweet. His dreams were of death and pain and Steve, standing over him with his shield raised.

Even now, his dreams are nightmares.

He close his eyes, sees green skin and sharp teeth, and hears him laughing. When he wakes in the night, Steve holds him as he cries.

Worse still, are the nights when he dreams of lying alone, sheets cold without Steve’s warmth. The nights when Steve stands over his bed and says nothing, just stares down at him. The nights when Tony feels the blood draining from his body and soaking the sheets and Steve watches and smiles and says, _you deserve this._

Those nights he wakes up covered in sweat. He lets Steve hold him and tell him everything is fine and wishes he could believe it. Some nights he pulls away, staggers to the bathroom and pukes his guts into the toilet. Some nights he buries his face in Steve’s neck, feels the beating of his heart and pretends he doesn’t know what it’s like to watch him die.

‘Is this real?’ Tony asks. He doesn’t even know what real means anymore.

‘I love you,’ is all Steve says and it has to be enough. _I love you_ has to mean forever. It has to mean that he is Steve and he is alive and he is here with Tony.

Tony is silent then. He lets Steve hold him and doesn’t think. He doesn’t think of all the pain and suffering. He doesn’t think of Steve’s body lying frozen in the ocean somewhere. He doesn’t think of what they should’ve had and what things should’ve been. He feels Steve, here and now, and doesn’t think.

He has this now and it’s all he’s going to get.

‘Tony?’ Steve says, and he sounds scared. He never sounded scared when they fought monsters and murderers. He shouldn’t sound scared. It’s unnatural, unreal. It’s not a sound Steve would make.

‘Stop it,’ Tony says. ‘Just… stop it.’ He doesn’t know if he means stop pretending, or stop revealing the truth.

Steve says nothing, just pulls him closers, holds him tighter. They lie there in the moment, like they have so many times before. ‘Everything’s okay, Tony,’ Steve says. ‘I’m here.’ Tony wishes it was true.

He wishes they could lie here forever and things would never have to change. That this sick game of pretend could last the rest of his life. Maybe it will. Maybe when this comes to an end, he’ll come to his end too. It’d be fitting that he should die by Steve’s hands. He hopes he’s the first, that he doesn’t have to live to see it all. He’d rather not see the consequence of his cowardice. He hopes Steve has some mercy in his soul.

For now though, Carol will smirk when they leave the bedroom together, still half naked, hair sticking up all over. She’ll call it Steve, and Tony will hide his shaking hands behind his back and square his shoulders and call it Steve too.

They are _Tony and Steve_. Tony sleeps by his side. Tony sits on the couch and holds his hand and squeezes until he feels numb. Tony fights supervillains as his teammate and they work as smoothly as they ever did. They are Tony and Steve. Tony stays at his side and watches him every waking moment, because they are Tony and Steve and that’s what couples do. Sometimes when they fuck - when Steve comes with Tony’s names on his lips - Tony thinks he sees his skin tinge green. Tony turns the lights off when they have sex now.

One day, the Skrulls will come. One day, he’ll feel Cap’s shield come down and break his neck for real. They’ll bury him next to his mother and call him just another casualty. No one will question it. They all thought it was Steve too. Tony wonders what it’s like to be a good man. He wishes he knew how to give this up.

Steve breathes a slow sigh into Tony’s ear, then says, ‘You know I love you, don’t you, Tony?’ Tony wonders what Steve would feel if he could see him now. He doesn’t deserve love.

‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘I know. I love you too, Steve.’

**Author's Note:**

> A fill for the 'Skrulls' square on my Stony Bingo card.
> 
>  
> 
> [On Tumblr](http://ironlawyer.tumblr.com/post/172316091917/fic-pyrite)


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